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BACK BAY Here's one for the books: Lost letters from president found 5/16/2004 The surprise fell from a forgotten old book, a biography of President Woodrow Wilson. "I remember being in a meeting where a guy rushed in and said, 'You'll never guess what I found!' " said Bill Letsky, director of marketing for the Boston Center for Adult Education. The discovery, by staffer Bob Walsh, was of a pair of typed letters from the 28th president, which had been tucked inside a copy of "Woodrow Wilson: As I know him," by Joseph P. Tumulty. The book, donated to the center in 1936 and likely never opened, was being removed with other books from the center's library during renovations last month when Wilson's brief notes slipped onto the floor. In the first letter, written in February of 1906, when Wilson was president of Princeton University, the future president accepts an invitation to speak at Harvard. In the second letter, dated June, he sends his regrets to Harvard law professor Frederick Stimson for not being able to make the trip because of poor health, citing "a left eye hemorrhage" that was so severe his doctors told him not to use his eyes "for months." "I shall deem myself very unfortunate," he wrote, "if a subsequent opportunity does not offer of seeing you and Mrs. Stimson in some way that will really give me an opportunity to know you." Apparently, Wilson and Stimson did eventually become friends: In 1914, Stimson became his ambassador to Argentina. The letters will be put on display or donated. PETER DeMARCO This story ran on page S3 of the Boston Globe on 5/16/2004. |
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